Beatrice & the Beast

Chapter 22.

Ashton's POV:

Want to know a secret? It's really big and you can't tell anyone.
(I s2g if any of you comment on that I will scream)

I am in love with a girl named Beatrice. Well, uh, maybe that's not a secret at all. Oops. Like, I guess she doesn't realize how much I love her. It's kind of ridiculous actually. Maybe I should see a therapist or something? Oh.. God. I sound like Luke.

Anyways... we've been hanging out a lot lately and I've just fallen more and more in love with her. Maybe she does have a lot of mood swings and she likes to scream at me and sometimes tries to hit me and everything.

But! It doesn't mean my feelings waver one bit. Me, Maycee, Calum, Michael and Claudia have been trying to keep her mind off of the Beast by hanging out with her together, as a group. I guess you could say that she is getting better. She doesn't cry as much as she used to. She takes her pills and eats food.

Well, she eats Chinese takeout for every meal and sometimes cold pizza. At least she eats though, right?

Her mom has been visiting her a lot more lately too! Baby Candice is starting to walk and she's getting really big! She actually looks just like Beatrice when she was a kid. I mean, I would know. I've known her since Pre-K.

It's kinda crazy, actually. I fell for her the moment I laid eyes on her.

I was playing on the playground when I saw her fall off of the swings and she was holding her knee in pain. She looked up at me and we had instant eye contact. I threw whatever toy I was holding and ran to her side, taking her hand and leading her to the teacher who was on duty. On the way over she kept whispering "ow ow ow ow ow" over and over again. It was really cute, actually.

Later on that day, she walked up to me with a Star Wars bandage on her knee and her hair in two braids with those cute little ball hair bands on the ends of them. She told me her name and gave me a punch on the shoulder. (She actually left a bruise but don't tell her that. She'll get cocky.)

From then on, we were best friends. We were the loudest, cutest, most annoying kids in our grade. And then we met Claudia, Maycee, Michael and Calum in third grade and it kinda all went downhill from there. We were literally insane. We threw AMAZING parties and bad A S S birthday parties. We had bouncy houses and shit. Totally badass.

I've been writing a lot more. Music, that is. Beatrice is the only person who knows about my obsession with music. She writes with me and plays too. Of course, she just sits there and stares at nothing in particular when I ask her to play with me. So, I usually just sit there with her and stare at the wall too. Somewhere in the process of sitting and staring at nothing, I look over at her and find her staring at me already. She looks down at my lips and back up to my eyes. Then we kiss. A lot. And then after we kiss, a lot, she ignores me and stays quiet for a long time. If I'm telling the truth, this happens everyday. It's like a ritual.

"Ashton." , My thoughts are interrupted by a sleepy Beatrice, who's standing in our apartment's hallway, with her blanket wrapped around her and her hair a mess. She has dark circles under her red eyes and tear streaks down her cheeks. I quickly stand up from the couch and look at her. "Trissy? What's on your mind, baby girl?"

She continues to stare at me and then whispers, "Can we cuddle?"

"Of course, baby. Come here." I open my arms and she runs into them. I wrap them around her body and feel that she's tense.

My hand starts rubbing her back and she slowly starts to relax. "Sit down, Trissy." She sits down and I sit down beside her, pulling her to my side. Her eyes slowly close as I hold her closer to me and whisper soothing words in her ear.

After a couple minutes of this, she looks up at me and starts speaking,
"I love you, Ashton. You're the only one who's been there for me since the beginning. Even through your whole thing that happened, you were there. You stayed through my Luke thing and you're here now. I love you, Ashton. I always have."

Her words sink into me. I'm bewitched by this woman. She doesn't even realize it, either. She doesn't realize that I love her with every bone and cell in my body. She's beautiful, inside and out. But then again, she's not. She's horrible. She's screwed me over so many times for Luke but she's here now. She came back. Beatrice is the love of my life and I don't want to leave her.

"Beatrice. I'm in love with every bit of you. I fell in love with the girl on the playground, who fell off the swings and had pigtails. I fell in love with the High School Musical fangirl who watched Hannah Montana and Sweet Life of Zach and Cody. I fell in love with the tween, emo, Beatrice who only listened to MCR and every other emo band out there. I fell in love with the Freshman girl who loved One Direction and still wasn't over The Jonas Brothers. I'm in love with the beautiful, caring, punk rock, hippie, sometimes really, really mean, woman who needs to be fixed. Beatrice, I promise to never leave you again. I promise."

Beatrice's eyes are still locked onto my own. She pulls me in and our lips crash together. All the other times that we've kissed were amazing, duh. But now... now it's different. She's a little fixed. She's here with me now and I hope she doesn't leave any time soon.